age from human rights groups of high profile figures questioning the n t c s commitment to the rule of our top stories this hour. international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. good to have you with us this hour pulling out of iraq washington expressed pride at what had been achieved and confidence in a democratic future but just weeks on violence is rampant and sectarian tension it boiling point while the prime minister pursues a seemingly personal vendetta against the vice president and caught in the middle of it all is journalism where the press has yet to discover its freedom sebastian reports. this spring iraqis inspired by neighboring arab countries began protesting against their government in a square in baghdad one which shares its name with the better known counterpart in

cairo. but iraqi journalists trying to cover these protests silenced by the government security forces in today's iraqi journalists who speak out are routinely imprisoned beaten or just simply killed it seems to be a high level of intolerance for dissent or for public criticism of either government policies or particular leaders. a freelance journalist showed r.t. some shocking youtube footage from the protests this february that explicitly show iraqi security forces targeting him because he's a journalist. he shouts which is arabic for a journalist over and over again but it makes the police more violent three or four maybe five right police were around me one of them slapped me in the head other one kicked me in the and they grabbed me fast yousif managed to escape

arrest thanks to two foreign journalists who intervened but since the arrest of one of his colleagues he stopped covering protests altogether became hard for journalists for example to go to. myself i don't go there i stopped there a long time ago not because. not that scared to be arrested. you know i'm worried to be mistreated we tried to speak to journalists who've been arrested in baghdad but everyone was too afraid to appear on camera so we came up here to the more peaceful kurdish region to see if the situation was any different here i met a young photographer who was arrested while covering similar protests in the kurdish region but after the interview he called to tell me he was scared of reprisals from the government and asked to blur his face and change his name after his arrest in april he was imprisoned for four days and tortured. six men came to the room and started to shout at me and beat me with cables then they gave me

electric shocks they wanted me to admit that i hadn't been at the protest. when he was finally released after four days a friend took pictures of his wounds and published them in a local magazine immediately ahmed was rearrested as a punishment for publicizing his initial arrest. came and they held me for three days and made me sign a document declaring that i would not talk to the press again back in baghdad the government spokesman admitted to r.t. that individuals in the iraqi government were indeed using their powers to silence the press that is not just that people been. using there but this is again is not protected by the government the government is there. and you could see that there are people in the ministry of interior for example they have misusing their power against the citizen and it is this year and that is the comfortable and some of them has been fired almost nine years after the invasion u.s. troops are home but what of the country they're leaving behind with politicians

using the security forces to silence journalists it appears that iraq lacks any credible press freedom or freedom that is essential to any democratic country sebastian meyer r t iraq. by the way if you'd like to see more of sebastian reports you can find him on our website it's not dot com iraq and also that we're running a poll asking where you think a post us iraq is heading and we can see on screen number the prevailing opinion of the country slowly slipping into chaos want to say iraqis will overthrow the current us backed government and make their own way forward into the future it's over port of you believe that iraq's already hit rock bottom and things can't get any worse than just four percent hope that it will get developed into a western style democracy those the results we see on screen so far log on to r.t. dot com and your voice would be good to hear from. the u.s. and u.k.

a call for syria to be expelled from two unesco human rights committees a british foreign office representative says the country's presence in itself sully's the u.n. bodies reputation meanwhile a former high ranking military chief who defected to the opposition has claimed syria won't be capable of confronting any international military action against the country he says the assessments based on confirmed information from sources within the syrian army and his own experience comes as tension in the country reaches boiling point after a suicide blast killed twenty six in central damascus arab league observers that have been working in syria since the end of december to present their initial report on the situation in the country on sunday. from the canada based center for research on globalization told me earlier that she thinks calls by the u.s. and u.k. for the exclusion of syria from unesco committees are absurd as their leaders have blood on their hands themselves. it's just something to think of the credibility of the assad regime and it's quite absurd when you think the u.k. and the u.s.

has been selves more criminals running free i mean george washington and tony blair there is ample evidence that they have committed war crimes and some of the running free so i mean this is absurd that they want to expel a serious from that from their council if you have the syrian government that is being in. the front and then you're going to put someone in place that's going to further the western interests and iran of those and i was russia was an ally and then of course the next step would be regime change in iraq. the head of libya's new government is personally welcome sudan's president omar al bashir is arrival in tripoli here who's one of the genocide charges by the international criminal court was a bitter opponent of gadhafi who in turn civilians and for to defend against themselves to for that defend themselves against russia's armies well human rights groups have voiced outrage at the visit and question the entities priorities patrick

a news reporter for the online magazine spiked told me earlier that he sees double standards. gordon brown shaking hands with get their feet in two thousand and nine at the g eight summit in italy or for example tony blair shaking hands with gadhafi in two thousand and seven just outside of his hometown where he was killed in certain two thousand and seven so i mean i think yes there are double standards here first at the same time western leaders are very open to doing this and do this themselves as well bashir did support the libyan rebels who were fighting against gadhafi and had good material reasons to do so for a long time sit down in libya get their fees libya had. a head and you can understand why bashir wanted gadhafi out and why now having supported speed the rebel uprising there would be some attempt to kind of welcome him. into libya not i must say that so many found of the national transitional council most of the time they weren't even in libya at all the people on the council themselves so off

cozying up and getting the approval of western governments to lead libya rather than orienting themselves for the libyan people and actually fighting for democracy there i find it very striking that you have no question in. criticizing the libyans for engaging with their neighbors and sorting out diplomatic relations always just i'm staggered by the fact that these human rights groups basically wield a human rights as missionaries in the nineteenth century wielded the bible in the ten commandments to basically civilized countries to be inferior and incapable of governing their own countries and people. talking to me a little earlier that egypt's parliamentary election is about to draw to a close with the muslim brotherhood claiming victory with nearly forty percent of the vote closely behind it is the radical islamist nor party secular parties are required only about a third of the seats were for analysis on the results and they are joined by middle east blogger culshaw he's in london well islam is winning in egypt as we can see

now as they are also in tunisia and morocco what kind of an arab world is this shaping up to be you know after this arab spring. well that's the question that everybody's pondering at the moment but i think one thing we need to keep in perspective is those election results are to a large extent indicative of the political situation and the political formation in the last year or before the rising so what you have here are islamist parties that are benefiting from those big changes because they have the experience and the organization so that's not to say that's a long term political advantage that they would always have but having said that the results that the north party in specific achieved in egypt were a bit of a surprise and i think where we need to look at there is specifically this an ability of the more secular elements in the egyptian uprising of talking to

the people and kind of galvanizing them and raising their support in the elections now what it does about the arab world if you like for the future i think it will be a combination of. socially conservative politics this is in the in the short term. the broad support the islamists have kind of more. if you like liberal economic policies but i have my doubts about the ability of this haven't supported across the board to govern and i think it's a position shared by them as well and they will try as much as possible to form alliances with other groups and bring in more people and you're likely to see why they're called elision taking power both in egypt and in other countries you say you have adult on the ability of islamic government to govern are you concerned

also about the democratic issue here is this exactly what the west wants to see mainly islamic dominated government in egypt for example let's concentrate on egypt . you know if we look at egypt i mean to be honest everybody anticipated a big big win for the muslim brotherhood and you put a member in the last elections two thousand and five that twenty percent of the vote even under extremely unfair circumstances elections that were completely engineered by own by mubarak and his apparent there's. kind of what you get this sense is there isn't a very clear program for governance there aren't the economic policies there aren't a kind of a clear vision of where they want to take egypt but tell just because it really will we see western style democracy in egypt. that that i mean that would take some time and actually even just to call it western style

democracy i mean you can't compare the forms of democracy that we have now in the west and look at the past twenty years there have been increasing or sort of theory in ism there's been clamping down and civil liberties so there's no guarantees if you just apply that label that there is going to work out in practice along democratic principles that everybody would like so you see that kind of. the idea of democracy in the way as i don't know if i had this uprising to anticipate that would happen in a very quick time in egypt but we need to look at the basic fact we have to keep a basic fact in mind here is that between the islamists in egypt had about sixty five percent popular support and they've had that for a very long time they never mounted a serious challenge to take control of power they were happy to appease if you live and the military in order to kind of preserve a certain space for themselves so the onus here if we want to see this genuine democracy movement towards democracy is for the elements the more secular elements

january twenty five and started this whole thing to push egypt in that direction but that will take time for sure call we'll leave it there thank you very much for your thoughts culture and middle east blogger joining me live there in london good to talk to you. we're also ahead for you this delving deeper into russia's industrial heartland closer takes a look at an amazing fusion ancient traditions and thriving business mix set in the region on the way to success. that's still to come but next we continue our pathfinder series bring you the stories of foreigners who are successfully pioneering business in russia today we meet the man who brings scores of world renowned actors and bands to the country bob van roekel used to be a restaurateur in los angeles until deciding one day to try to lock in russia something he's never regretted.

i basically ended up moving to russia all by accident in one thousand and ninety eight i was asked by a russian friend in los angeles if i could bring a hollywood studio to moscow because mayor luzhkov was interested in building multiplex cinemas and wanted a hollywood studio partner i had friends that were running warner brothers they sent head of international theatres with me gosh my my first trip was very impressionable i couldn't understand how so many young people i was meeting were making tens of millions of dollars a year and some of them millionaires before they were thirty and these were some of the things that made me realize there's a lot of opportunity here there's not a lot of people who are doing hollywood business there hasn't been a lot of contact and interaction with celebrities i love a challenge what could be more challenging than moving to russia and trying to develop and create

a business here for us with them. i didn't know any actors but i started meeting them just to bring them to russia or king on that project the russian comedy that's going to shoot in america steven seagal zola he told me they'll do it a couple days for two hundred fifty thousand dollars well kilmer's interested in helping out. then wealthy russians started asking for other people and i just started calling everybody i knew in l.a. who knew a producer a new a director and i called them from russia after eight years i brought over eighty actors and bands to russia i think it's very important for you to go to los angeles with me in the next few months we should meet with you hopefully make your release a different actors you would like to do cameos in this film the biggest challenge to overcome is gaining people's trust and performing one. please recently i was asked to bring john claude van damme to chechnya for the president's birthday and

day of the city and. yell of live music at the other one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero in my heart. it's a place most people are very afraid to go to of course john claude you know his expenses need to be paid then others for him to go there and it's very frightening dealing and working with chechnya and friends knowing that if something went wrong didn't come and money is paid. who are people going to come calling and looking for asking for the money back and it took a long time for me to win people's confidence that they would send money to an act or a band in advance russia it costs more than a lot of other parts of the world because russians have been willing to pay more you know if russians weren't willing to pay more celebrities would be coming for less but when they have people making such big offers just to get them how can you refuse so russia's been great to help push up their prices jennifer lopez gets two

million dollars to go and perform you know in russia and kazakhstan and some other places if you're american in the u.s. we understand our system how to set up a business so we can easily research any product or any idea we have to find out if it's been saturated or not in russia it's really different because it's so hard to get to the important people that make the decisions when i have to work with a person who works for someone here i get nowhere i can't do a deal because they need to see so much because their jobs on the line their names on the line they're so afraid that just drags on and drags on whatever i'm talking to them about when you can pick up the phone and call the head of the company or someone on the board of directors i know in a week if i can do this deal or not with them rush is just. much more individual life you really need to know some important people here to have success you know i

was thinking near from here which is a part of the reason i never learned russian is i just thought ok one year from now i'm sure something will come up back in the l a the us go back i'll start doing movies but it is so exciting here every day so many new things and new deals and new opportunities and that i haven't been able to leave. so one individual careers may be flourishing whole countries are drowning in debt next we head to new york with the president people in the streets for tips on what should be done to rescue the global economy. today everyone's upset with how the world leaders are handling the economy so how would you fix that this week let's talk about that whole country do you think is doing a good job. let me say. you know now. what

would you do to fix the problem in greece. injuries wow. i don't know how did that . because i know i say no no no maybe that's why it's going all around a good word to fix is each of our problems personally so for all out there working hard and spending money to local communities then that's you know a way of part of building up each local community eventually the whole country gets stronger right yeah isn't it time maybe for the government to stop trying to fix it and let people and companies fix their own wallets i think that's a good answer yes to fix the economy what should they be doing. they should be pumping more money into it pumping more money they've been pumping millions and billions and trillions and done a good so why is that the solution that we keep going back to the only thing we can do so we can also see just do nothing and let people sort it out themselves. people

can sort of theirselves not a matter of not throwing money into the economy it's a matter of living within our means if you don't have enough revenue then you have to cut spending yes so governments are trillions of dollars in debt so it sounds like they have no money right well they have to they obviously you can't stop everything all at once but you do have to you do have to pull back and you have to come up with a reasonable plan to stop the hemorrhaging but we don't just keep printing money and we don't keep inflating government so that's and most of the european countries are having trouble because the government is sixty percent larger than it should be so why why did you and i see business and government leaders can't because we don't get paid by the people that are behind the scenes and since i'm not running for. campaign ad campaign contributions by people that. politicians are just. really so what should they be doing better. other probably trying to change its

economy from an oil economy to something else we've got heaps of people with lots of brains and. doing something about the environment. people with brains are in positions of power. so it seems like with the system that's currently in place for how world leaders get elected it might be time for solutions to come from someplace else. now time for a close up series as we continue to delve deeper into the country's far east. the region is russia's main gateway to the pacific and one of its most rapidly developing industrial centers and it has discovered feeding the hungry asian economies does not have to be at the expense of tradition. the baro screeching in

russia's far east is becoming a growing center for export to the hungry economies in the south china south korea and japan increasing material exports of ward and coal are going out to the pacific and south and is that they were looking at in my report this monster called the coal stacker is the new face of russia's far east coast it can load over four thousand tons of coal an hour into ships at this rapidly expanding sea terminal this year they exported ten million tons of stuff almost exclusively south asian markets but we've noticed there's a coal boom of coal consumption worldwide has increased so this port covers almost all of asia from the come comes from some of russia's largest deposits five hundred monitors in there and he joins the oil and timber flowing out of the region in ever

greater quantities tugboats maneuver the ships into place through storms and the winter cold and even the most modern tankers once on their way to helped along by a much older technology oh and this vast new ship internals are springing up to supply overseas markets will all see very foundations presented by this like caps which along with for help makes a russia's gateway to the pacific hundreds of lighthouses dot the coast all the way from the border with north korea up to the arctic. victor has been manning his lighthouse for over thirty years but he's glad he's not too far out into the wilderness because we're close enough to the nearest town look at it other lighthouse keepers are stuck out in the tiger without even roads sometimes a ship or helicopter deliver supplies there's no other way to come or go big has

not had a ship run aground since the end. in one nine hundred ninety s. he's seen bears moose and tigers visit his light house and say as he never grows bored of the ever changing seascape far from feeling lonely he talks of the remand to system of being such a secluded spot on the coastline. i used to go down to the bay at four am catching crabs and start a fire then my wife and kids would join me and we'd have breakfast on the shore and watch the sunrise in the summer this whole field would be bright orange and blue if you could pick to retires next year you say he's come to love this robinson crusoe xylem and while he can remember the pristine beauty of his coastline others are seeing it sail on into the future with his talk a little bit more about the bar off in the experience of moving here from abroad is the main aholic that came here from britain a basket self is trying to upgrade itself trying to move into the out of the soviet

times and into the modern modern age with industry with the also working on a new cosmodrome what do you know about the new developments here i know that is very very important to the local area and you know that it's improving transport links all the time people are finally investing in the far east which is obviously going to be very good for the economy i mean i'm here because my fiance is working for an oil refinery in the same more investment there and this cousin jane is going to i think only improve putin said it was one of the biggest and most important projects that's happening in russia at the moment so yes i think it's up and coming this. as someone who's come from a different culture from outside what would you say to what the people who are thinking. there is possibly business which changes but should i come here what would you say to them. i mean it's worth a try to how good during a russian look at this important and very few restaurants or cafes where they have an english menu and and things like that i think when i don't speak russian people

. find it frustrating read and bear that in mind prices ok so if prices extortionate. you can go check. of intervention well there we go that's an insight from someone who has made the leap out to the far east so bar ask it's not going to get any warmer here but it seems that with future with the development of the region it is going to get more connected to the outside world. dumbarton that well coming up we take in the attorney and capital room with a petition of the russian flavor and i must go out program that's off of the headlines in just a couple minutes here on the stay with us live here in moscow. i

had a family i lived in a fairly nice community wasn't which was an upscale it was just like you know archie bunker society ok then they started showing up here what happened was my company decided i could get cheap labor and they got rid of us. those are. the rules of the eaglets love legally we have to get up every morning we have to go to work and you know we have to pay our bills and we have to do it and that's just the american dream and if you want the american dream you have to go by the laws i

figure is here's one of the major trails in the united states and. i watch and they run run down my property and about this noise. was a little mean that cockroaches from coming over the wire is protecting the country i'm the kind of guy who doesn't mind it is pants dirty so i come out here you know we're all immigrants as well know that we all here are some some are out.

if you're just joining suburban mall come to moscow with you twenty four hours a day top stories this hour. we tried to speak to journalists who've been arrested in baghdad but everyone was too afraid to appear on camera. with us or went to iraq as the government continues a relentless crackdown on those shining a light on corruption and repression. pressure on syria calling for it to be expelled from unesco's human rights committees tensions within the country are running high.